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Letters to the editor Sunday Apr 25, 1999 at 2:00 AM Dec 16, 2010 at 8:42 PM Mark Swisher, Ashland Click here to contact your representatives The Mail Tribune welcomes letters on any topic of general public relevance and interest. Please include a daytime phone number and address for verification. We cannot print letters, even e-mail letters, without verification. We're interested in the comments of all our on-line readers, but we can only publish letters from residents within our Southern Oregon and Northern California circulation area. Sorry, we cannot publish poetry. Writers are limited to one letter every 30 days. Address your letters of 250 word or less (150 words for thank you or election letters) to: Letters to the editor Box 1108 Medford, OR 97501 Fax (541) 776-4376. Or send your letter e-mail to: — Cash cache Anyone thinking of pulling their life savings out of banks in fear of the Y2K crash should stop and think. Remember the well-respected retired Ashland teacher who had thousands of dollars saved in a home safe? Police confiscated it because his renter was arrested. It doesn't matter the teacher can document how he legally came by his cash cache. The DEA says it's theirs now and they aren't giving it back. That the law permits such thievery is disturbing. For over 15 years the Mail Tribune has carried stories of funding crises in our local law enforcement agencies. Diminished budgets, manpower cuts and staff overloads are common in local law enforcement. Yet, the Chicago-style police shake-down of this teacher remains reprehensible. Ordinary citizens understand it is only a small step from the police confiscating a landlord's assets to them taking your family's savings if they find it in your purse or wallet during a search. Shame on the DEA commander for permitting his officers to pilfer this teacher's savings under the guise of enforcing the law. This decision to take the money and run speaks volumes for the level of poor judgement found at the top of that agency. The way the laws are today, a prudent citizen understands Y2K may be a boom year in police funding, if people choose to put their family savings under the mattress. -- — Poor library conditions From a librarian's point of view, the current working conditions in the Ashland library are, quite frankly, appalling. Librarians are forced to work in a ridiculously small building, with inadequate shelving space for books, computers and equipment. In addition to the above problems, the building is poorly wired and offers continual leakage during rainstorms. Despite these obstacles, the Ashland staff consistently provides patrons with excellent service. They are to be commended! It's time to renovate and improve the quality of our existing library. Let us bring it up to 21st century standards. As a community, we deserve it. -- Debbie McKeever, Ashland. — Bad for teachers, kids A child's education is no better than the teacher providing it. You can buy new textbooks, put computers in the classroom, or enact massive curriculum reforms, but it's still the teaching that makes the child. Yet in a step toward turning our children over to unqualified para-professionals, Sens. Neil Bryant, R-Bend, and Gene Defler, R-Salem, have sponsored legislation designed to drive Oregon's teachers out of state. Senate Bills 1180 and 1181 strip teachers of nearly all their employee rights and many of their retirement benefits. This mean-spirited legislation will not only contribute to a massive teacher shortage, it will also hinder teacher preparedness, encourage over-crowded classrooms and undermine effective teaching practices. One wonders about the hidden agenda of these politicians, especially since they've put this bill on the fast track to avoid public scrutiny. I urge you to contact your senators immediately and ask them to defeat SB1180 and SB1181. Teaching is already among the five lowest-paid professions requiring a college degree. To strip teachers of their employee rights and their retirement benefits is not only bad for Oregon's children, it's simply unfair. -- Mack Lewis, Central Point — Spare no Sparrow In regards to Richard Cronberg's April 9 article on bluebird houses: He states the lack of a perch will keep sparrows out. That is simply not true. In the 10 years that I have lived in Medford, I have placed and now maintain some 150 birdhouses around the Rogue Valley in an attempt to make up for the fact that the aggressive European starlings have taken over all of the natural nesting cavities. Although none of these boxes are equipped with a perch, house sparrows (formally known as the English sparrow) have been my biggest problem. These non-native birds destroy eggs, kill the young and even kill adult birds that they can catch inside the box. Numerous times I have opened nest boxes and found adult bluebirds or swallows dead with holes pecked in their skulls by house sparrows. The American Bluebird Society states that the common house sparrow is the worst enemy of the bluebird. If sparrows do use the nesting box their nests should be removed repeatedly, daily if necessary, during the nesting season. Cronberg also states that bluebirds require a — inch entrance. While this is true for western bluebirds, mountain bluebirds require a — inch entrance. In regards to feeding birds, if house sparrows, starlings, cowbirds or jays are using your feeders you are doing more harm than good. I strongly recommend that feeders not be used during the nesting season, April through August. -- Roger Thompson, Medford — History views I am very angry with the people who are currently protesting the U.S.-NATO involvement in Kosovo. Have they not been paying attention to the news? What is happening to the Albanians is wrong. Ethnic cleansing is a violation of every moral principle our country holds dear. Clinton is absolutely right to get involved. It is vital that the United States uses its power and influence to make things change for the better. Isolationism is not the answer. We can't allow ourselves to cower and look away from such atrocities. Have we learned nothing from the past? Nazi Germany was only a short time ago. Let us not forget the lesson 6 million lives taught us. Milosevic is not in prehistoric times. The moral laws of humanity bind him -- to treat people with respect and dignity. Russia seems to have forgotten their millions of soldiers who died at the hand of the Nazis, whose hatred and immoral ideas burn inside Milosevic. We are on the verge of the 21st century. You would think Eastern Europe would want peace. However they invite war when they slaughter innocence. Let compassion and righteousness prevail. Support the American-NATO Force. Do not permit history to look at Americans as cowards. Take a stand towards justice for all future posterities. -- Jose Reyes, Medford — Gas price ripoff I just cannot believe how the oil companies are ripping the consumer off on prices of gas. And guess what: Your senator, your politician and our government is doing nothing. There is no shortage of oil. And as far as the price of oil and the price of gas today, it's another way the oil companies are getting back at the consumer. And the consumer says there is nothing we can do but wait. There is something we can do, but only if everybody sticks together and that is this: Park your vehicle, get on your bike and ride to work and to the market. Ride your bicycle; take a vacation; stay at home for two weeks; do not drive your car. If that would happen then you would see the oil companies crying and this would generate one heck of a surplus and then you would see some cheap gas -- very cheap. It's called getting even. Today, $1.50 a gallon, $2 a gallon tomorrow. When will it end? -- Sam Aldrich, Medford